Whites More Likely To Smoke Pot Than Other Races In NYC: Study

NEW YORK — White New Yorkers are more likely to use marijuana than their black and Latino neighbors who bear the brunt of the drug's continued illegality, city health officials have found.

Some 24.1 percent of white city residents aged 12 and older they had used cannabis within the past year in 2015 and 2016, according to the Department of Health's first comprehensive report on the use of the drug in the five boroughs.

That's a significantly higher rate than the 14 percent of black New Yorkers and 12.3 percent of Latino city-dwellers who used pot in that period, the report released Tuesday shows. The figures are drawn from an annual national survey conducted by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The rates of marijuana use offer a stark contrast to police statistics showing how cannabis laws are enforced in the city. Nearly 93 percent of the 1,061 people arrested on low-level pot possession charges in the first six months of 2019 were black and Latino, while fewer than 4 percent were white, NYPD data show.

The Health Department's report "shows what we have long known," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said — that white people use marijuana more frequently even though black and Latino New Yorkers face the most arrests.

"This is why the Brooklyn DA’s office no longer prosecutes anyone for simple possession of marijuana," Gonazlez, a Democrat, said in a statement. "I commend the City for undertaking this study and hope it will be taken into account as we consider how to safely legalize marijuana in a way that fairly addresses the harms of the past."

The city's statistics in some ways mirror a national trend — black Americans are nearly four times more likely than their white peers to get arrested for marijuana even though they use the drug at roughly similar rates, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The NYPD has faced persistent criticism for the continued racial disparity in pot arrests even as cops have lightened up enforcement. Police officials have noted that the raw numbers of low-level marijuana arrests have dropped sharply.

Overall, about 16 percent of New Yorkers — or roughly 1.1 million people — used cannabis in 2015 and 2016, a rate that has remained stable since around 2010, the Health Department report says.

The marijuana use rate for the city's high schoolers was also 16 percent in 2017 — meaning they're less likely to smoke pot than youth nationwide, who had a rate of 20 percent that year, according to the report.

The new numbers come amid continued debate over whether New York should become the 12th state to legalize cannabis. Gov. Andrew Cuomo got firmly behind legalization late last year, but the state Legislature settled on further decriminalizing pot in June after a push for full legalization fell apart. New York also has a medical marijuana program.

"The more we know about cannabis use, the better we can tailor strategies and approaches that promote the health of the city’s residents," Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city's health commissioner, said in a statement.